Such groups included members of the Association of Genetic Nurses and Counsellors (AGNC), National Institute for Health Akt inhibitor Research (NIHR), Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Association of Medical Research Charities and staff from the

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and The Wellcome Trust. Hard copies of flyers advertising the study and inviting participation were handed out directly to people attending the Royal Society Festival of Science, the Cheltenham Science Festival and at various SBI-0206965 genetics conferences the DDD team attended. They were also given directly to NHS professional recruiting into the molecular studies part of the DDD project. Such staff could also give these directly to patients attending clinic.   3. Social media AM worked with a Social Media Consultant to build the strategy for recruitment. The strategy involved the creation of an online infrastructure which comprised: Creating a brand and title: the word ‘Genomethics’ was invented—to represent

the movement of the ‘genethics’ era (work on ethics and genetics) into the genomics era. One image was bought that symbolised the work; this was selected because it was considered user friendly enough to appeal to multiple audiences—a child playing with a DNA model. The image together with the title ‘Genomethics’ appeared on all the social media fora. A Facebook page was created called ‘Genomethics Survey’ (https://​www.​facebook.​com/​Genomethics). This offered a platform to disseminate the survey and create a list of followers who could do the same. A Twitter account was created: @Genomethics. This was used as a platform to enable participation in current debate about LY411575 nmr issues relating to genomics. It was also used as a tool to signpost potential participants

to the survey. A ‘Genomethics’ website was created (www.​genomethics.​org) that contained information about the study and the survey. This was hosted at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. A website for AM containing details of her CV and work on the genomethics study was created. This was to give credibility to the research, but in a ‘friendly’, ‘approachable’ way in-line with other social media mannerisms. This was constructed using www.​wix.​com (see www.​annamiddleton.​info). A LinkedIn profile was created for AM, containing the Genomethics brand image, plus CV details for AM. The Sitaxentan purpose of this was to use professional networks to increase traffic to the survey. A Facebook ‘like’ button was added to the survey and so too was a Twitter share button so that participants could make their followers aware of the research.   All of the above media were used to create a robust infrastructure that could be used in multiple ways to advertise the survey and invite participation. This was specifically done using the following mechanisms. Blogging The strategy focussed around the provision of blog posts that would opportunistically bring potential participants to the survey.